y implied as a vacant somewhat by his logic. For which
discovery the incomparable man will please accept my profoundest
ingratitude.

After "positive philosophy," the croak of ravens, the hoot of owls,
anything that has the touch, the charm, and infinite suggestion of
Nature and life, will be more than welcome; and in good time we have
reached the desired island.

Not to find eiders, though, but only Saddle-Back Gulls, a crowd of which
arose on our approach, and hovered about at safe, yet tantalizing
distance, keeping up their monotonous, piping scream. The saddle-back, a
large, powerful white bird, with a patch of black crossing it like a
saddle, is the great enemy of the eider, pillaging its nest and
devouring its young at every opportunity, and had probably driven the
ducks from this place. It is a pirate of pirates, a Semmes in the air,
cowardly toward equals, relentless toward the weak and unweaponed; and
the chief care of the mother duck is to protect her little brood from
these greedy confederates. One of the coolest, yet wariest rascals in
the world, it can scarcely be surprised, but lingers about, just beyond
gun-shot range, screaming, as if it said, "Why don't you fire?
Fire!--who cares?" I came at length to cherish toward them no little
animosity, and would willingly have played Kearsarge upon them, could
any challenge have drawn them from port. But during the whole cruise not
one of them consoled us with so much as a feather.

The flight of this bird meanwhile is magnificent,--so full of powerful
grace, of achieving leisure and ease. Nothing can be more striking than
its contrast with the labored propulsion of the duck. A few slow waves
of the wing, and there it is high in the air; then a droop, a decline,
but so light and soft, so exquisitely graduated, that the downward drift
of a feather seems lumpish and leaden in the comparison; then again up
it goes with such an ease as if it rose by specific levity, like smoke
from a chimney in a day of calm; and aloft it wheels, circles, floats,
and at length sails on its broad vans away, passing in a few minutes
over wide spaces, and yet, with its leisurely stroke, seeming engaged
only in airing its pinions. One might fancy it the very spirit of motion
imaged in a picturesque symbol.

In that delightful book, "Out-Door Papers," the author celebrates
charmingly the charm of birds; but I, who am more humanist than
naturalist, would say rather, What exhaustless fas